Martinez group raising money to buy Pine Meadow golf course, only it’s not for sale.

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Folks walk the course on the last day of operation where Mount Diablo can be seen in the distance at Pine Meadow Golf Course in Martinez Calif., on Sunday, April. 12, 2015. It is land that’s been a battle between the Dean family, who own it and would like to build houses here, and a citizens’ group which wants to preserve the course as “open space.” (Susan Tripp Pollard/Bay Area News Group)

MARTINEZ — The group working to turn 26 acres of what was once a golf course into the city’s last “open space park” is trying to raise money to buy the land, despite the apparent lack of a willing seller.

The former Pine Meadow Golf Course land — 20 of its 26 acres, anyway — was recently sold to Civic Martinez, a corporation associated with homebuilder DeNova Homes, said a DeNova official. The company has for several years planned on building houses on that southeast Martinez parcel, and doesn’t appear interested in selling it.

But that hasn’t stopped members of the Friends of Pine Meadow group. They have been in contact with representatives of several agencies, including the Association of Bay Area Governments, with its Priority Conservation Area program; the San Francisco-based nonprofit Trust for Public Land, which works to preserve land for use as parks, mostly in and near cities; and the National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund. They’d like the city work with the organizations to make the park a reality, although the city has said it is not interested.

“We’ve had to do some work into seeing how Pine Meadow would fit into a bigger parks and trails system,” said Tim Platt, one of the Friends’ spokesmen. “And it does fit. We believe it is the only place left in Martinez for a real open space park.”

Their efforts will be for naught if Martinez voters in November 2016 fail to pass a referendum to reverse the council’s January 2015 vote to rezone the golf course property to allow housing. The council took the action in anticipation of DeNova Homes buying the land. If the referendum vote fails, DeNova/Civic Martinez would be free to pursue its housing project.

Also, city officials have repeatedly said they wouldn’t build a park at Pine Meadow even if the money and land were available, given the larger Hidden Lakes Park is about six blocks away.

“The city needs to protect its already-made investments,” including 19 existing parks, said Councilwoman Anamarie Avila Farias. A crumbling marina, she said, would be a better place to put city money than a new park.

Dana Tsubota, executive vice president and general counsel for Pleasanton-based DeNova Homes, wouldn’t discuss specifics of the land purchase, or whether the specter of the November 2016 referendum influenced it. But she doesn’t envision the former golf course ever becoming a park.

“In order for the ‘Friends’ to acquire these 26 acres, they would need both a willing buyer and a willing seller,” she said. “To start, the ‘Friends’ do not have a willing buyer.”

This hasn’t deterred Platt, Mark Thomson and others working to line up prospective money sources, and to convince city leaders to explore the possibilities.

“We’ve got to show them the wisdom of our vision,” said Thomson, who lives a few blocks from the former golf course.

Christine Coward Dean confirmed her family’s sale of most of Pine Meadow to Civic Martinez, but would share little else about the deal, which she said closed at the end of July.

She said she still owns the clubhouse, now a tavern and restaurant, and that she still has outstanding loans associated with the property. She also said she still has a vested interest in the land’s future.

Dean still seethes that an outside group would feel entitled to decide the future of land her family owned.

Thomson believes the land’s sale to Civic Martinez/DeNova improves his group’s chances of public support in the November 2016 election.

“We’re dealing with a developer instead of a well-respected family in town,” he said.